Le Fou
by Celestia0909
Summary: "He wanted to move his lips and say a command, but they were frozen shut, and the ice crept up his throat, maiming him and making him lame. He wanted to tell his companion to take him back home, back to his brother. But his voice had left him, and his lips were too numb. Was this how it felt to be voiceless? To be lazy and numb?"


Cold.

His lips felt numb as unseen daggers of ice pricked every inch of his body. The cold was all he felt, and the cold was all he could remember as the water ebbed and flowed along his fingertips and up his arm. Underneath him, jagged rocks with smooth surfaces dug into his spine and skin.

Pain. He should have felt it, the harsh sting of ice seeping into every vein in his body. He should've felt the pain of the rocks digging into every crevice in his back and spine. But he didn't. The cold was all he felt, but the feeling of warmth was all he remembered, as his mind ebbed and flowed in and out of the present and past.

When he was ten years old, his brother received his letter to Hogwarts. He remembered the owl, large, tawny, and with feathers above its' eyes that made it look as if it had eyebrows. His brother had been ecstatic when the owl dropped the letter on his lap, and left again without even a hoot.

He remembered sitting beside his brother as he eagerly tore the envelope open, the sun had been streaming rays of light into the bedroom, and he remembered feeling the warmth seeping into his skin.

His mother and father had never believed in modern heating, and their home at Twelve Grimmauld Place was perpetually cold - even in summers. That day, the day after his brother's birthday at the end of Autumn, had been the warmest he had ever felt in that house.

A pair of hands, smaller than any normal being, were on his arm and shoving him back and forth. He recognised the gruff voice saying his name, pleading for him to get up.

He wanted to move his lips and say a command, but they were frozen shut, and the ice crept up his throat, maiming him and making him lame. He wanted to tell his companion to take him back home, back to his brother. But his voice had left him, and his lips were too numb. Was this how it felt to be voiceless? To be lazy and numb?

When he was fifteen years old, his brother ran away from home. He remembered the terrible fight that had erupted between his mother and his brother - he couldn't remember the exact details, but he knew it had been something to do with the Dark Lord and Muggleborns. His brother didn't believe they should be exterminated, but his mother was gleeful at the thought.

He remembered feeling the rush of warmth that had lingered around the house whenever his brother came home; and he remembered it disappear when he'd left. He had been bloody, bruised, and beaten when he had, and he hated his brother for turning his back on everything that he should've held dear.

Regulus had been hot with fury as he watched his mother curse his brother, but when Sirius had walked out the door, never again to return, all the warmth in his body had rushed out of him, replaced by the glacial fear of having to face their parents alone.

"Master Regulus, we must leave." Kreacher pleaded as small hands wrapped around his arm, tugging him away from the water's edge. The water called to him in a way entirely unlike anything else; it was inviting him, enticing him to join the depths.

The start of term after Sirius ran away, he cornered him while Regulus had been on the way to dinner. Sirius had pleaded with him to forgive him, to see reason and to understand why he had left. All that Regulus could feel was icy fury. He hated his brother, resented him for being a coward, and yet the part of his heart that remembered what it was to feel warmth pleaded with him to forgive his brother.

That was the first time they duelled one another. Regulus wanted to kill him. He hadn't. He had been reminded of their days spent in the front yard playing Gobstones. Days of sitting by the window and waiting for _his_ Hogwarts letter. He had remembered the warmth he'd felt when he was with his brother, and he missed it. How could he have killed the only person in the world that he truly loved?

The small hands wrapped around his arm were gone, but Regulus could still feel the presence of Kreacher beside him. He could no longer feel his toes and fingers, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before the icy spread of death and paralysis would reach his heart.

It was only when Regulus had been branded with the mark of the Death Eaters, a year after he graduated and the same day he killed someone for the first time, that he realised how much of a fool he had been. He had been so blind to not realise it before and so stupid to have not listened to his brother. Their family and the Death Eaters were _evil_ in everything they believed and did..

At that point, it had been so long since Regulus had felt the warmth that he didn't care what happened to him or his life. The only things that had mattered then were to continue feeling nothing and to please his parents.

It had only been when the body of Allegra Bones - a girl from Ravenclaw in his year - dropped dead from his spell that the ice that surrounded his heart began to thaw. It had only been then when he stopped to consider whether everything he had done, everything he had worked for was worth selling his soul.

A loud pop echoed around the eerie cave, and Regulus knew that Kreacher was gone.

He had never believed that people's lives played out in front of them when they faced death. He did now though, and he regretted most of it. He had been such a fool. A bastard. An idiot for letting Sirius slip out of his life.

Everything before his brother running away was covered in a warm rosy tinted glow - they had been the best days of his life. Everything after was blue and grey. Sirius had been the one source of light and warmth in his life, and he doubted the rest of his family could even comprehend what those two things meant.

He had been so blind, sleepwalking through life after his brother had left instead of honouring him and joining him. Sirius was right, the people in their family weren't good, and he had been a fool to deny it.

He'd read on a card in a Muggle shop once that life was only worth living if you loved someone. He _had_ loved someone, his brother, and he had been a fool to let him go. He wanted to blame the world, blame his family, the Dark Lord, his brother for turning his back on what truly mattered. The truth was that only _he_ was to blame for where he was now.

Perhaps dying was the one good thing that he could do for the world? Perhaps his death would save someone, maybe it would save his brother? It was the best he could hope for now.

Regulus gasped as the cold began to choke him and blur his vision. He only knew he was alive because of a trail of moisture that dragged across his cheek from his eye. His tear crossed his lips, and they tasted bitter - like regret. He was full of it, and it only made sense that it leaked out of him now.

He watched in his periphery as pale skeleton hands reached out of the water and reached towards him. Some were attached to bodies while others were disjointed. This was the price he had to pay for turning his back on his brother's love and for playing the fool in his own life.

His life had amounted to nothing. Everything he had done was for nothing. Nobody would care that he had died, nobody would even _know_.

Cold hands and fingers wrapped around his arm, dragging his body closer towards the depths of the cold black lake. His body screamed in pain as it was dragged along the jagged stones, and Regulus' tears didn't stop, even as he sunk into the depths of death.

The cold was all he felt as the ice reached his heart.

But the warmth was what he wished for as grey eyes flashed in his mind.

* * *

**A/N COUNT: 83**

**WORD COUNT: 1421**

* * *

**The Houses Competition**

House: Lions

Class: History of Magic

Category: Drabble

Prompt: [Song Prompt] Dust and Ashes from Natasha, Pierre, and The Great Comet of 1812

* * *

**Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry**

House: Gryffindor

Assignment 6

Subject: Men's History - Historical Men Involved in the Arts

Task: #1 - William Shakespeare - Writer/Bard: Shakespeare's plays could be divided into three categories. Tragedy, Comedy or History.

Write a fic that falls into one of these categories. (note: the genre needs to be the majority of the story)


End file.
